The Hollow Man
by DasCheesenborgir
Summary: "This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper."


**In case the title and summary didn't tip you off, this is more or less a personal pissing contest to see how many pretentious T.S. Eliot references I probably still don't understand I could cram into a single fanfic. I figured the bleak and depressing realm of Dark Souls would be as good a place as any to do so.**

**And for once, I didn't draw the cover image myself. Sure as hell wish I had that much talent though :(**

Morning time.

More like about damn time.

The stagnant rays of near monochrome sunshine peeked through the gaping hole in the ceiling, the bland grey light of half-hearted winter shooing away the night.

From behind the visor of his helm, the light seemed even dimmer, what little there was to begin with strangled and suffocated by the cold steel before only a few scant vestiges of sunlight were allowed to snake through the thin slits of the faceplate. A metal cage, a prison cell for his eyes just as the stone he sat in was a cell for him, the possibility of freedom so tempting and so very tangible but impossible to reach.

The splintered bones of his arms creaked helplessly as his fingers, encased in suffocating leather and steel, twitched and reached out for… something. Part of his eyes wanted to look at exactly what, but the flesh and muscle that would pivot his head around was already too dead and… empty? No, empty wasn't the word he was looking for was it?

And so instead, he continued watching the sky, glossy orbs held in decayed and scorched flesh splayed as far open as he could, the beady eyes drinking in the slivers of light with greed.

He knew better than to deprive them of that nourishment, however watered down and smeared with filth it was now. He knew that they needed something to hold onto, just as he did, to keep themselves from drying out, from clawing themselves out of his sockets, leaving behind only hollow pits where they had once been. They were fighting as hard as he was against the hollowing.

Hollow. Hollow. That was it, wasn't it?

His cracked lips creaked open mechanically, shredded and dried vocal chords echoing instinctively with the same sentences he had come to chant every day. Every hour. Every minute. Or was it every week? Every month? Yea-

_"We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men." _

There might have been a time when he remembered the meaning behind those words. There might have been a time when he remembered where they came from. That time, along with all sense of time it seemed, was long gone now. Snuffed out and smothered, drowned in icy water, like… like…

What was it called again? Ember? Candle? Torch? Firepi-

Fire. No, that wasn't quite the word he was looking for. Fire sounded far too primal, too destructive, too much natural rage all bundled- _stuffed_ inside it, like… a hollow effigy stuffed with straw. Yes, yes, that made sense.

No, he was looking for… something else. Softer, smaller, less encompassing than a titanic and intimidating term such as fire.

The pitter-patter of soft sloshing through the water of his rotting cell echoed throughout the steel confines of his helmet, but he dared not turn his gaze away from the decayed sunlight.

He didn't need to see it to know what it was. The sound of the soft, rancid claws and feet against the moldy stone was one he had been very familiar with. The barely noticeable scrape of stiff hairs like, like… like a bush of strings, wrought of rusted iron, screeching and wailing softly as they sheared along the narrow walls of a small tunnel.

The rat sputtered, the rat muttered.

"Regard thy sword, that which thou hast cast thine eyes upon many times before."

His hand stirred to life, pain shooting through his fingers as he suddenly shot them out, his arm aching as he reached out for… something.

"Regard its blade, so clean and pristine, glowing with a holy sheen."

So clean and pristine, even with the cursed blood of undead smearing its surface for decades.

"Regard the crest upon thy shield, so clean and pristine, but thou wonder what it means."

His other hand twitched, and the scrape of warped steel against blessed metal…

"Now, remember."

The beady black eyes beneath the steel faceplate strained and stretched, its tears wrought out long ago, for the time for crying had long past.

"Thou art Oscar of Astora."

He was Oscar of Astora. Once the Chosen Undead, once an aspiring knight, once an aspiring squire, and in the end, nothing more than just another hollow, cursed undead. Trapped in an asylum of his own folly, his own cowardice, cursed to lie upon stone forever with no way out.

The blade that he had once so righteously wielded, smiting and striking down the heretical undead, cutting down the abominations even as they cowered and ran, the blade so clean and pristine, even stained with the very cursed blood that now ran through his dead veins. Now it laid just out of his reach, his only chance of freedom that slipped from the grasp that had been too weak to endure.

It might have been ironic at a time. Oscar of Astora, in the end no more than just another hollow, another… _heretic_, as he might have once said, in death. No different from any other that lived in the hollowing and shriveling flesh, earth of the world.

A hacking cough escaped his scorched throat as he opened his mouth, trying to say… something.

"And now, thou cast thy gaze skyward once more. Watching, waiting, for what, thou dost not know, for thy memory leaves once more."

"W-wai-"

But it was too late. The rat skittered out of his cell, the water shivering and dancing as its feet sloshed against the moldy stone beneath.

When he looked back at the ceiling, his eyes felt tired. He wanted to sleep, for the rays of light were fading the more the seared flesh of his eyelids closed over the glossy orbs of his eyes, and that meant that night was falling soon.

His fingers twitched, but the weight of steel held his arm in place.

Rest, he concluded. He needed rest. Then, the next day, he would have enough energy to… to…

"Farewell, my friend. May we meet again."

**0-0-0**

The stagnant rays of near monochrome sunshine peeked through the gaping hole in the ceiling, the bland grey light of half-hearted winter shooing away the night.

Morning time.

About damn time.


End file.
